


Never Hate

by Kemis



Category: Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Community: kinkfest, M/M, Threesome - Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-09-16
Updated: 2007-09-16
Packaged: 2017-10-07 14:52:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/66217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kemis/pseuds/Kemis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Zack talks about himself, and about his relations with legends like Commander Hewley and General Sephiroth.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Never Hate

**Author's Note:**

> Written on the prompt: Sephiroth/Zack: Heat (sweat-slick skin; tempers rising with the heat) - "And for once, his eyes weren't cold and distant, but as hot and near as his body against mine."

You know, contrary to popular belief, I wasn't always the handsome, charming devil I am now. Seems impossible, I know, but when I first arrived in Midgar from Gongaga I was just one of your average starry-eyed new recruits that dreamed of a better life. Well, only cuter than average.

There was big talk of Angeal, Sephiroth and Genesis in the barracks back then, too. The best SOLDIERs First Class, the elite within the elite. They were everyone's favorite topic, recruits liked to exchange stories, pictures or items about them. For 100 gil you could sneak in the SOLDIER cafeteria kitchen and have three cutlery items of your choice among the ones they used for lunch. A copy from the security tapes of one of their training sessions was 500 gil. It was really crazy.

What's with that look? Are you insinuating I was a groupie too? Of course I wasn't. I didn't waste time obsessing over them, I was busy working my ass off to pass the entrance tests.

...okay, so I _did_ buy one of the tapes. Big deal. It was purely for research purposes.

Anyway.

The first few months in SOLDIER were surreal. Hectic, yes, hard and difficult, and the enhancements were really bad to go through the first time, but still surreal. The 'seeing King Arthur and his Knights in full regalia shopping for groceries at the shop around the corner' kind of surreal, if you know what I mean.

I ran into the three of them often enough in the hallways, but my first official meeting was with Angeal, when he came over to Third Class basic training to oversee the lesson. A subtle way to get a feel of the squad and evaluating possible pupils, you see. He called me to the mat, wiped the floor with me and asked me why the hell the geeks had let a damn puppy into SOLDIER. Lucky me he's always been dog person.

I met Sephiroth on my first Second class mission. I admit was very exited. In a totally non-fanboish way, of course. He was just as one would expect from him looking at the recruitment posters. Cold, aloof, professional, and so damn good that just watching his sword move would knock the breath out of you in amazement.

But in private, he was different. Only with Angeal, at least at the beginning, and trust me, it took a lot of effort and bearing with a lot more dog jokes than I'd like to think about to coerce him into not clamping up around me, but he eventually learned. He never was affectionate, he was still cool with a hint of secretiveness – I don't think he quite knew how _not_ to be – but in a slightly more relaxed way. He had a wicked sense of humor when he relaxed enough to let it loose.

He didn't even punch me the first time I kissed him, and he had all the reasons to given that I was so nervous I sort of ended up jumping him on the couch totally out of the blue. He only stared at me. Then he rolled up his paper, and honest to god _smacked me over the head_ with it telling me to heel. I was so fucking surprised I obeyed on auto-pilot before realizing what I was doing. Angeal chocked on his coffee from laughing too hard.

Are you surprised? You're not angry, are you? You're actually the first person I've told about the weird relationship we shared. I never could... well, you know. _Before_. There are regulations against fraternization. Yes, the Company pretty much turned a blind eye on SOLDIER, especially after Wutai - a lot of men turned to each other to keep the nightmares at bay, as the enhancements made it pretty much impossible to get that kind of comfort from anyone else. Not so for Sephiroth, Angeal and Genesis, though. Shinra and the Science Department - that _fucking Hojo_ \- kept a tight leash on their most prized SOLDIERs. But it doesn't matter anymore, I guess, does it. Not now.

I can just change topic, you know. Babble about the weather or something. I understand if you don't want to hear about the sordid details of my love life and I don't want to make you feel uncomfortable, I just need to talk about it. Say it out loud, and maybe then it will feel less like it all exists only sealed tight inside my head. Does it make sense?

Huh. Yes, sorry. Of course you know what I mean. You know what it feels like, right? I trust you to keep my secrets, so I'll trust you on this one too. They are important memories, about the three of us. Some people just don't deserve to know about that, that's all. Those were really good times. Anyone else would have expected it not to last - that old saying about three being a crowd, but I've always been too much of an optimist for my own good.

Those were the happiest years of my life. But it was also when things really started to go south. Sephiroth wasn't really fazed by Genesis going rogue, since they never were on the best terms, but it wasn't as easy for Angeal. And then what Angeal did just hit too close home for Seph too.

I didn't want to believe it, at the beginning. He must have a plan, I kept thinking, he's doing it to lure Genesis out and then turn him in to Shinra. I just couldn't believe Angeal would turn his back on Shinra, leave _us_ to switch sides. And when I realized he was for real, I was so very angry. Angry and hurt that he would throw away everything, at being discarded with the rest. Angry at Sephiroth for cutting himself off and not wanting to talk to me.

I backed off for a while, because I knew he needed time to come to terms with what happened. To be perfectly honest, I needed the time too. But he simply... didn't. None of my coaxing and cajoling worked, and he started to avoid me altogether. He just slammed up his walls and barricaded himself in. It was maddening to watch.

So I cornered him in one of the training rooms. You know, the room at the 49th floor with the virtual reality simulator? I think it was one of his favorite places, he was almost always there when he wasn't in his office. The air conditioning was broken, and the damn simulator gave off more warmth than a heater. It was damn hot in there. I wanted to talk to him, and he didn't want to.

I was starting to feel frustrated, and he insisted with acting like he was perfectly fine with what happened, despite both of us knowing he wasn't - Ifrit, Seph always could out-stubborn anyone when he put his mind to it. I ended up going out of my way to provoke him, but don't ask me why. I think I wanted to make him blow off some steam so that he'd stop ignoring everything. It just escalated from there. I was yelling, he was growling and, honestly I don't even know who went for his weapon first, but we ended up fighting. Things are kind of blurry from there.

I don't know how long we dueled, but neither of us was holding back - well, maybe he was just a bit, because he almost chopped my limbs off few times, 'almost' being the key word. I'm not sure how we ended up dropping the swords. One moment we were fighting, and the next we were rolling on the floor, snarling and kissing and tearing each other's clothes off. The one thing I remember clearly is his eyes, which for the first time were neither cold, reserved nor distant. For once, his eyes were as hot and near as his body against mine.

Next thing I know, we're a pile of sticky, bloodied and aching limbs on the floor. Good thing I had smoldered the security cameras with a Bolt2 as soon as I had walked into the room. I had to hack into the virtual reality processor and wipe out all the records from the session afterwards, but it was well worth it, even considering the Cure2 I had to cast on myself later.

I'm not advocating angry sex for fixing relationship issues, but it did work for us, even if not as well as I thought at the time. Things were better after that. He wasn't as wound up, I stopped pushing, he stopped avoiding me. Angeal's absence was like a painful wound between us, but we were talking again, spending time together outside of work. We weren't as close as before, but we were slowly getting there. Seph wasn't fine at all, but then again I neither was I. I honestly thought he had started on the way of recovery, that we could help each other heal, you know? Yeah, shows just how much I actually understood of him.

In hindsight, Nibelheim was the ending of something that started with Angeal's betrayal. I think that Angeal saying they were all monsters cracked something inside of him. It must have been something they had all been struggling with for a very long time, the three of them. You weren't there, but, Gaia, the look on Sephiroth's face when he saw those things in the reactor, as he asked out loud if he too was the same as those monsters... I should have realized it was happening all over again, that the same thing that had gotten to Genesis and Angeal was taking him too.

You're wondering where I'm getting to with this, aren't you? I'm wondering that too, actually. What he did was horrible, and I'm not sure I can forgive him for it, but I can't hate him, either. He really wasn't the same person as before. Just... remember this, okay? Think about it, and try not to hate him, too. As a favor for me, if you want. Hate, in the end, is just another open door for the madness to sneak in. I couldn't bear to see you go down the same way.

Listen to me, I'm getting all grim and mushy. Come on, Spike, story time is over. Let's get going, before I make even more of a fool of myself. Hey, did I ever tell you about that time near Junon with Angeal, his bike and the wild chocobo? Aw, man, don't tell me I didn't. It was absolutely hilarious, trust me.

I'll tuck that one away for another day, thought. It's not as if we don't have time, after all it's still a long way to Midgar.


End file.
